Patricia Routledge

Having been awarded an OBE in 1993, Routledge was given a CBE in 2004. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame at 7020 Hollywood Boulevard. Some Harry Potter fans have suggested Routledge for the role of Dolores Umbridge for the movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2006 or 2007). Sheridan was married four times, including a marriage lasting one year to the actor George Brent. In the United States, in addition to her Tony Award-winning role in Darling of the Day, she appeared in a number of short-lived musicals including the legendary 1976 flop, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She became ill during the filming of the first season, and died from esophageal and liver cancer in Woodland Hills, California. Routledge was last seen in the West End in 2004 in The Solid Gold Cadillac. She appeared in the television soap opera Another World during the mid sixties, and then started a role in the television series Pistols and Petticoats.

A recent BBC radio dramatisation of Carole Hayman's "Ladies of Letters" sees Patricia playing pensioner Vera Small in a two-hander with Prunella Scales (as Irene Spencer), a gentle, quintessentially British comedy where the two ladies exchange letters (more recently e-mails) full of acerbic comment and ironic asides. Her role in I Was A Male War Bride (1949) gave her another success but by the fifties she was struggling to find work and her film roles were sporadic. She has also played several real-life characters on television, including Barbara Pym and Hildegard of Bingen. Despite these successes, her career began to decline. In 1996, she took the lead in another long-running series, this time a drama, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. She received substantial roles and positive reaction from critics and moviegoers in such films as Angels With Dirty Faces (1938 opposite James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart), Dodge City (1939 opposite Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland), Torrid Zone and They Drive By Night ( both 1940), The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942 opposite Bette Davis) and Kings Row (1942 where she received top billing playing opposite Ronald Reagan, Robert Cummings and Betty Field). It was in 1990 that she first played the comic role of Hyacinth Bucket, an originally working-class woman with social pretensions (for example, she insists on pronouncing her surname "Bouquet"). Her career prospects began to improve and tagged The Oomph Girl, Sheridan had become a popular pin-up girl by the early forties.

Her numerous television appearances, including roles in Coronation Street and several BBC drama serials, failed to make her a household name until the 1980s, when she appeared, amongst other things, in Victoria Wood's comedy series, and Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series of short plays. She made her film debut in 1934 in the film Search For Beauty and played uncredited bit parts in Paramount films for the next two years. Paramount made little effort to develop her talent so she left, signing a contract with Warner Brothers in 1936 and changing her name to Ann Sheridan. Around this time, she also acted alongside Sidney Poitier in the film To Sir, With Love. She abandoned college to pursue a career in Hollywood. Her appearance in Darling of the Day won her a Tony Award in 1968 (she shared the honor that year with Leslie Uggams, who also won for Hallelujah, Baby!). She subsequently entered and won a beauty contest, with part of her prize being a bit part in a Paramount film. She appeared in many stage productions, including musicals, and made her Broadway debut in 1966. Born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, Texas, she was a college student when her sister sent a photograph of her to Paramount Studios.

She was born at Birkenhead in Cheshire, and educated at the University of Liverpool, going on to act at the Liverpool Playhouse. She went on to study at the Bristol Old Vic's theatre school. Ann Sheridan (February 21 - 1915 - January 21, 1967) was an American film actress. Patricia Routledge (born 17 February 1929) is a popular British actress, best known for television roles such as Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances.